Morning Drive

I live in a very different part of the city than I did last year and, therefore, have a very different drive to work.  For most of the way, I am taking our city’s main street and find it very pretty.

 

It starts in a residential area with homes that have an ‘English cottage’ feel to them and old trees.  After sweeping through a big curve, I take a bridge over our industrial valley, which overlooks (through revitalization) several large recreational sites and a major brewery.  Next, now proceeding down a broad street with planted medians, I go through an economically depressed area.  However, the apartment buildings are still charming as they date from the 1920s and 1930s.  I believe my city is unique in that we had many apartment buildings built during this era with all the old plaster and woodwork rather than flats made from private homes.

 

The next notable site is a major university.  There had been talk off and on for decades about turning the ‘main drag’ into a pedestrian mall here as students and staff would cross in great herds willy-nilly; there were frequent reports of near misses. 

 

After that, we hit ‘downtown’ with an entertainment/convention complex, a mall made by connecting existing buildings with skywalks, a bridge over a river and a few more blocks to my parking lot.  During this period, I can see our art museum at ‘the end of the road’.  It has ‘wing’s, so must check it out to see how fully they are extended. 

 

Even in this area, there are many planters with trees and greenery.  After parking, I walk a couple of blocks to my office, and pass by a hotel and federal courthouse from the late 1800s.  The hotel is on the National Registry.